CVLT Nation wrote of the album that "in this age, where everything is pre-fab and artificial, Pallbearer have created an album that is a vehicle to a different mindstate."

The Metal Observer gave the album a perfect score. The reviewer described the opening track, "Foreigner," as "such an emotionally engaging piece of music as to be absolutely gripping, yet, while it is certainly a bleak piece of music, it is not so depressing as to be desolate and oppressive but the kind of melancholy that is life affirming in the way it seems to reach inside your very being and tweak every existential nerve that you’ve been unconsciously managing to fight down, until something as affecting as “Foreigner” comes along and drowns you in it — and while it is certainly impossible to feel cheerful while listening to the album, it is a welcome release, and one will find themselves willingly allowing these dark waters to wash over them."

Pitchfork gave "Sorrow and Extinction" the coveted "Best New Music" designation. "Ultimately, it feels like Pallbearer have created their own version of a traditional jazz funeral march, or like they went ahead and invented some sort of 'celebratory doom,'" wrote Brandon Stosuy. "Whatever you want to call it, the record's a triumph.'

Teeth of the Devine's E. Thomas called the album "one of the most moving and brilliant traditional doom records of this generation."

Pallbearer released a surprise EP for streaming, to be followed by an art-laden vinyl version October 21. /more/

Here's the great new video from Little Rock doom metal troupe Pallbearer, a 10 minute long plot-less short film backed by their epic "Watcher in the Dark" directed by Little Rock native Adam Heathcott (now based in Portland). It's a kind of solemn, desert-oracle kaleidoscope, with shades of Jodorowsky and "Zabriskie Point" that finally descend into pure foggy visual abstraction /more/

Here are the Little Rock albums we listened to more than any others this year, the ones that meant the most to us and that we’d push on any out-of-towners who asked what was new in the Little Rock music scene. /more/

Olympia, Washington record lable 20 Buck Spin has announced the vinyl-only release of Pallbearer's "Demos," previously only available on limited edition CD-R and cassette, on December 9. The demos date back to 2010, before the Little Rock doom metal group's now-classic debut, "Sorrow and Extinction." /more/

Little Rock’s leading harbingers of doom return with a new album, “Foundations of Burden.” /more/

Little Rock's Pallbearer, "doom's next big thing" according to Decibel magazine, who featured them on the cover of their latest issue looking real intimidating and wielding a gas lantern, has a new record on the way, the follow-up to their ecstatically well-reviewed 2012 release "Sorrow and Extinction." /more/

The issue isn't on newsstands yet, but here's the cover of September's Decibel, featuring Little Rock's Pallbearer and the caption, "The torch is passed to doom's next big thing." /more/

Here's the first single, "The Ghost I Used To Be," from Pallbearer's forthcoming album, "Foundations Of Burden," recorded in Portland with producer Billy Anderson (Swans, Eyehategod, Sleep, Neurosis, Red House Painters) and due out August 19 via Profound Lore. /more/

More by Robert Bell

Little Rock’s leading harbingers of doom return with a new album, “Foundations of Burden.”

You've got to figure that a band from frozen-ass Winnipeg is just gonna be way gnarlier and tougher than a band from some sun-kissed tropical clime where people wear tank tops and flip-flops year-round.

Also, KEN Mode at Vinos', Red Octopus' 'Trysts and Turns' at the Public Theatre, Mothwind at Maxine's, Patty Griffin at George's Majestic, "Joe Turner's Come and Gone" at the Weekend Theater and Ash at Juanita's.

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The podcast Design Matters, published by Design Observer, is celebrating its 10th year and they are revisiting some of their best episodes from the last decade. I just finished this week's replay of the interview with the Scottish born illustrator Marion Deuchars. At the end of the wonderful interview, her two young sons are invited into the studio near where they pitch in some of their own thoughts on art and, in particular, drawing in the art books their mother created for children and adults.

World wide weird duo Rural War Room (Donavan Suitt & Byron Werner) is celebrating 10 years of broadcasting and production here in Little Rock and abroad. RWR Radio on KABF 88.3 FM (10 p.m. Tuesdays or anytime on their website), features the duo alternating records in an effort to surprise one another.

BRASHER: Hello Arkansans, this is the first piece from us, Brasher and Rowe and we are some dudes who work in downtown Little Rock and we eat lunch and just talk about all the exciting things around here.

by Jeremy Brasher and Matthew Rowe

Sep 18, 2015

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Next week a series of meetings on the use of technology to tackle global problems will be held in Little Rock by Club de Madrid — a coalition of more than 100 former democratic former presidents and prime ministers from around the world — and the P80 Group, a coalition of large public pension and sovereign wealth funds founded by Prince Charles to combat climate change. The conference will discuss deploying existing technologies to increase access to food, water, energy, clean environment, and medical care.

Plus, recipes from the Times staff.

Sen. Jason Rapert (R-Conway) was on "Capitol View" on KARK, Channel 4, this morning, and among other things that will likely inspire you to yell at your computer screen, he said he expects someone in the legislature to file a bill to do ... something about changing the name of the Bill and Hillary Clinton National Airport.

So fed up was young Edgar Welch of Salisbury, N.C., that Hillary Clinton was getting away with running a child-sex ring that he grabbed a couple of guns last Sunday, drove 360 miles to the Comet Ping Pong pizzeria in Washington, D.C., where Clinton was supposed to be holding the kids as sex slaves, and fired his AR-15 into the floor to clear the joint of pizza cravers and conduct his own investigation of the pedophilia syndicate of the former first lady, U.S. senator and secretary of state.

There is almost nothing real about "reality TV." All but the dullest viewers understand that the dramatic twists and turns on shows like "The Bachelor" or "Celebrity Apprentice" are scripted in advance. More or less like professional wrestling, Donald Trump's previous claim to fame.